


tell me we're dead

by icedmachinery, icemachine



Category: Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Non-Linear Narrative, Supernatural Elements, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26653666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icedmachinery/pseuds/icedmachinery, https://archiveofourown.org/users/icemachine/pseuds/icemachine
Summary: “So,” he says, folding his hands in his lap. “The famous Rita Farr is a vampire.”She smiles at him, but he knows this smile; force, masking, hiding a deeper pain. “Not when I was famous, but now, yes.”(Or: obligatory vampire AU.)
Relationships: Keeg Bovo & Larry Trainor, Rita Farr & Larry Trainor
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15
Collections: Allbingo





	tell me we're dead

**Author's Note:**

> title from richard siken, prompt for my allbingo card: supernatural elements

iii.

Larry doesn’t ever  _ see  _ the person who turned him; he sees white hair, he sees pale, blue-tinted skin in flashes and pulses that burn like sunlight — imagines that this person, this  _ monster,  _ could not control their hunger, just couldn’t hold on any longer. He wants to believe in good intentions, even when the world has scathed him; it’s almost admirable, almost. To Rita, it is admirable, but she cannot share the belief, can’t hold optimism in her arms or any part of her cold body. It is the most tragic fable in the universe. They’re so  _ dead. _

0.

Larry doesn’t ever see the person who turned him, but when he rises from his grave he sees a woman dressed in blood-red; he does not hunger, he cannot sense anything within her that he can feed on, and he is so hungry, he is so hungry, he  _ is so hungry he is so hungry — _

HE IS SO HUNGRY —

_ HE FEELS THE HUNGER SEEP INTO EVERY CELL & FLOW WITHIN HIM UNLIKE BLOOD & MORE LIKE HE HAS A RAGING SEA INSIDE OF HIS BODY AND THE WATER IS TAINTED WITH HUNGER, VIRAL HUNGER, HUNGER INFECTING— _

He looks up at her. His hands are caked in dirt, his fingernails are cracked and torn from crawling out of the wreckage of his past life, his fingernails red without blood - red like her dress - red like everything filling up his vision now, he is so  _ hungry,  _ did you know that Larry Trainor is hungry?

“My name,” she says, and his auditory perception is bubbling, her voice at unpredictable, changing volumes, “is Rita Farr. I know.” She tosses something down into his grave —  _ oh it smells so wonderful oh he is so hungry — blood blood blood blood.  _ “Drink up.”

Larry grabs the blood bag wolfish, drowns his mouth in it, feels the red encompass him. This is what he is now.

ii.

“So,” he says, folding his hands in his lap. “The famous Rita Farr is a vampire.”

She smiles at him, but he knows this smile; force, masking, hiding a deeper pain. “Not when I was famous, but now, yes.”

“You’re still famous. I’m a big fan of your performances, you know.” This seems to lighten her, her expression flattered. “They… were always so deep, so intricate. I related to them a lot.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Because I could tell there was something underneath it all, something  _ real.. _ .”

“What’s that?”

“Pain,” he finishes, and it’s soft, and it’s grating, and her eyes flicker away instantly, moving her glass up to her lips. 

“Maybe,” she says. “To be frank, I don’t remember.”

i.

She brings him to a manor in Cloverton, Ohio, and introduces him to a man named Niles Caulder. Rita says that he was born a demon, but chose to be good, says that he wants to help Larry and give him a better quality of life.

He doesn’t know, yet, that Larry deserved to die.

v.

It is 1962. He considers writing a letter to John. Retrieves paper, pencil, even writes  _ Dear John—- _

but what would he say?

“I’m a monster now. I have always been a monster, but now I am truly a monster, now my soul is in my teeth and in my hunger and nothing else, but I still love you, you are still my lover, you will always be my love.”

They think that Larry is dead. They think that he was murdered. They think that Larry is at peace. This letter —- showing his love is too  _ risky,  _ and John would yearn for him, John would journey to find him, and Larry simply couldn’t  _ bear  _ it. Larry is destined to be alone, to suffer, to die inside endlessly.

He rips it apart. Teeth, always teeth.

iv.

Flashes of light. He keeps dreaming about them.

Whoever it was that made him monstrous, with their blinding light and aura of terror. Somehow Larry knows —- knows that —- he knows that they didn’t want this. He doesn’t know why he knows this; it is engraved into his mind, into his very composition. They did not want to hurt him. They did not desire this.

In the first dream, they are faceless. He can see their body, their head and features, but they lack definition, distinction, anything recognizable.

In the second dream he can almost—

their eyes—-

are so  _ white—- _

vi.

“Is it true?” he asks, one night, as Rita can finally open the curtains, unshield them from the sunlight as the night falls, and he looks out the window of the manor, takes in the darkness and the beauty of it. He never appreciated the beauty of darkness before his death. He never appreciated anything before his death, but he can find beauty and meaning in everything now; he took it all for granted, and now his experiences are limited, now he can’t go outside during the day or be near fire or feel the environment around him -- as they say, you don’t realize what you have until you lose it.

“Is what true?” she asks, absentminded as she picks up her yarn and knitting needles, begins her latest project. “I’m sure you’ve heard many things.”

“Is it true that vampires… that we have psychic bonds with the people that… made us what we are?”

“Sometimes,” she responds. “It’s rare. It requires a certain level of intimacy.”

“Oh.”

“Why?”

“I keep having this dream,” Larry explains, “every night, where—”

v.

In his dream, he sees Niles Caulder, and a cage. Inside of the cage—-

Inside of the cage is a pale, sickly thing on its hands and knees. He can feel it instantly, even in the dreamscape —  _ hunger,  _ like the day he was turned,  _ hunger hunger hunger  _ devouring.

Niles approaches the cage. He shushes them. They look human, but: barely, on the edge of humanity, like they are  _ so close  _ to shrouding themselves in the concept. The being lunges at him, claws extended,  _ hungry. _

“I’m sorry for this,” he says. “I truly am.” He stops for a moment to press a hand against the bars of the cage, and to Larry it is so pitiful, it is infuriating. He wouldn’t do this — would he? It’s just a dream. He is dreaming.

“Keeg,” Niles continues, “I will free you today.”

They freeze for a moment at their name, and then the scenery melts away to instill a new setting: a motel, and  _ oh,  _ Larry knows this place, this is where—

where—

Niles wheels a smaller cage with —  _ Keeg —  _ inside of it up to the lobby door. He unlocks it. He opens the door. Keeg enters, animalistic—

Cut to the end of it all, Keeg standing over Larry’s body with widened, whitened eyes —  _ “What have I done?”  _ Quiet, strained, scratchy. They don’t speak often — he’s not sure why he knows that. The words are like razors exiting their throat, the blood trickling down their chin and into a pool on the floor. The receptionist is dead, too, in the corner, their vision blurring over a tremble as they study her lifelessness. What did they do? What did Niles do to  _ them? _

x.

Niles confesses when he is confronted —  _ yes,  _ he says,  _ I did it, I did it to both of you, but you have to listen to me— _

and Rita’s nail polish chips when she grasps the key to their new apartment, miles away from the manor, hidden into safety. They are done with Niles Caulder. They have the rest of eternity to recover, if they can recover, if they are capable of repairing themselves.

Larry hates Keeg. He knows this hatred more than any other emotion. He daydreams, often, about meeting them and how the universe would have that path unfold—-

He has Rita, he will always have Rita. They can recover.

  
  
  
  



End file.
